Superfluous Soldiers
by Panache
Summary: He thought he had left her strong, ready to take on the world. Harry Potter had never been more wrong. And he’d been wrong quite a lot in his lifetime. Post HBP, GWNL kinda. Ch. 4:: Sick Leave
1. Enlisting

Disclaimer: We all know its JKR's and not mine.

Author's Note: I have no idea where the hell this came from. But I like Ginny and Neville in a non-simple kind of way, and wanted to take them out for a spin given the events of HBP. If you'd feel so inclined to read, I thank you.

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He thought he had left her strong, ready to take on the world. He thought that the knowledge of his love would sustain her in the coming year, provide a light in the darkness he had left her to face alone. Harry Potter thought Ginny Weasley would his general on the home front, leading Dumbledore's Army, and that when he returned, for whatever happened he would return, they would piece their lives back together.

Harry Potter had never been more wrong. And he'd been wrong quite a lot in his lifetime.

Not that she'd done anything but perpetuate the myth. She'd smiled when he'd left her, through her tears she'd laughed about keeping Ron and Hermione apart, and kissed him goodbye in a way that said 'I'll be okay.'

But she hadn't been okay, she honestly thought she would be, but that had been the biggest lie of all. He had left her broken. It was like he had taken all the best parts of her with him, and left her to manage with all the faulty, dysfunctional pieces of herself. And she'd self-destructed, right in front of everyone.

It had been the first meeting of DA for the year. In truth she hadn't thought much about putting one together, not that she'd thought much about anything, but Neville and Luna had appeared before her at breakfast on the fifth day of school with plans, training schedules, and a list of new recruits they thought would be trustworthy. So she'd muttered something about yeah that sounded good, just to make them go away. Except they came back the next day and day after that, and before she realized it, she and Neville were eating every meal together at the Gryffindor table, and meeting up with Luna during every free period.

They made her laugh and smile in a way that wasn't sad. Neville with his hideously poor memory but truly brave heart and Luna with theories so crazy they just might be the most brilliant thing anyone had ever come up with. They were her trio. The three misfits of Hogwarts—the bungler, the loon, and the girl Harry didn't want.

Strangely it was this blossoming friendship that probably did the most to destroy her. Because as she spent more time with Neville and Luna, as she came to depend on their presence, to laugh at their foibles, and appreciate their strengths, she realized that this was what Harry, Ron, and Hermione were to each other—an inseparable trinity—and that was why when they had insisted on coming, Harry hadn't spoken a word about Voldemort using them, attacking them, although anyone could tell you they were just as precious as she ever was. Harry had welcomed them along because he needed them. They made him stronger.

And she wasn't a part of that. She was on the outside.

It had been thought that had repeated itself over and over, beating a tattoo in her brain until she couldn't hear anything else. Harry didn't need her. Harry didn't need her. When she'd stood in front of the roomful of mostly Gryffindors and Ravenclaws, a few Hufflepuffs, and two thoroughly vetted Slytherins and began to speak about how with Dumbledore gone and the Death Eaters growing in strength it was up to them to protect Hogwarts to make sure that whatever happened this place remained, she'd been fine. But when she'd started in about how they were necessary, how people were counting on them, the words wouldn't come anymore. She had just stood there in the middle of the room silent and hollow because the words weren't true, nobody was counting on them. People were counting on Harry. People were counting on Ron and Hermione by association. But back here in this room, these young faces, they wouldn't be remembered because no one thought their sacrifices necessary, just unfortunate.

She didn't know how long she stood there struck dumb by the knowledge that in the end they were all superfluous, even her. She was barely conscious of the uncomfortable murmurs going through the room, increasing in volume and anxiety with each passing minute. She hardly felt the pair of strong hands on her shoulders, gently but firmly guiding her back to her chair.

Though she heard one of the Ravenclaw's grumbled comments that this was Harry's fight and not theirs, she couldn't bring herself to respond because truthfully she thought he had point. No one doubted that whatever they did here, the outcome would depend on the trio who was far away. So when several of the students started to gather up their things, she made no move to stop them.

"Sit down."

In the end it was probably more the shock of hearing Neville issue such a command, than any real power of the command itself, but whatever it was everyone was suddenly still.

"All of you sit down. Y-you came to hear what we had to say, so . . . you're going to hear it." Blinking a few time, Ginny looked up to find her tall, awkward friend standing in the middle of the circle looking for all the world like he'd really rather be facing a Snape shaped bogart at the moment. But still he stood there, his posture laced with a kind of steel that reinforced his words even as the nervousness in his voice undercut them.

"We've already heard what she had to say and it wasn't much," shouted a different heckler from the back of the room.

"Fine!" Neville snapped, "You want to go . . . go then, but you're wrong about one thing . . . this isn't just Harry's fight!"

He had everyone's attention now, including Ginny's.

"Is it?" Even as his body shook with the exertion of forcing himself to remain the center of attention, his gaze swept the room. "You all know what I'm talking about. You know why you're here. You're not here because you want glory or fame. You're here because Y-"

He stopped and then visibly shoring himself up as though he was about to plunge head first into the lake in the middle of February, barreled ahead, "Because Voldemort—yeah, that's right I said it!—because he took something from you. He took something from all of us and we never got a say, never got to do a damn thing about it. So we're doing something about it now."

Neville had calmed a bit, a little of the desperate rage leaking out of him, and he looked around the room a bit like he didn't know what he was doing standing in the middle of it. For a moment Ginny thought the spell that had settled over the room might be broken, but then from the back of the room came the unmistakable voice of Colin Creavey.

"He took my first year at Hogwarts. I'm told it was a damn good year too." This seemed to break a little of the tension and the group laughed.

"My brother." Everyone's heads whirled around to stare at the compact Slytherin boy who had been huddled in the darkest corner. "Two years ago, after he left Hogwarts, came back from his summer holiday with the Dark Mark."

At their incredulous stares, he began to roll up his sleeves as though to prove that his brother was the only one who bore that mark, but Neville's voice cut his movements short acting as a kind of unstated acceptance.

"He took my parents." He had their full attention again, "They're not dead, but they might as well be."

This seemed to be the final crack in the damn. One by one each student volunteered their own personal losses. Everything from a distant relative they had met only a few times but remembered fondly, to a seventh year Hufflepuff whose entire village had been wiped out in a single night.

"The Death Eaters killed off the entire population of Sparklipunks."

Luna looked around, wideyed at everyone's stares of astonishment, "They didn't like them because they could always sense evil coming and warn a household. My father has written extensively about the need for the ministry to launch an aggressive Sparklipunk repopulation effort." Still everyone stared. "I always wanted one for a pet."

"Well there you go," yelled the Slytherin boy, "none of us will ever have a Sparklipunk. I call that a bloody crime."

Everyone chuckled, and Ginny found herself warming to the burly, dark-haired boy. Then slowly, she became uncomfortably aware that everyone was staring her, that she was the only one who hadn't volunteered her loss.

Shifting her gaze around the room, her eyes finally lighted on Neville, looking at her from across the room, with nothing but simple concern and encouragement. Not looking away, she shrugged with feigned casualness.

"He took Harry, didn't he?"

And with that, with that final admission their unspoken pact was sealed. Dumbledore's Army was reformed, a phoenix comprised by the fire of victims who wouldn't be victims anymore.

And with that Ginny lost a little piece of her heart to Neville Longbottom.

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Thank you for reading. I have a few ideas to extend this if anyone would be interested.

Comments and Criticisms always appreciated.

Panache


	2. Letters from the Front Lines

Disclaimer: We all know its JKR's and not mine.

Author's Note: Apparently some people thought this might be worth continuing, and since thanks to "The Next Ten Minutes" from the "The Last Five Years" I know precisely where I want it to go, I thought I'd give it a try.

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As the start of term faded into the middle of term, Ginny found herself frequently wishing that Harry Potter had done a great many things differently. She wished he hadn't left, wished he had taken her with him, wished he'd kissed her earlier so they would have had more time, wished he'd never kissed her at all . . .

At the moment, however, there was nothing she more fervently wished than that Harry Potter did not own an extremely conspicuous snow white owl. She thought they were trying to keep a low profile. Hadn't he learned that sending letters by Hedwig was not an effective means of doing so? _Stupid git._

"Everyone's staring at me, aren't they?" She whispered, not looking up from the piece of parchment she had clutched in her hands.

Neville didn't say anything, just continued sucking the spot on his thumb where Hedwig had nipped him when he tried to feed her.

"_You're_ staring at me."

"I'm looking at you." He replied noncommittally, but he dropped his gaze all the same, concentrating instead on wrapping his now bleeding thumb in a clean napkin.

"You should have Madame Pomfrey take a look at that."

Neville shook his head. "I've had worse from the _Mimbulus mimbletonia_. I'll be fine."

"I didn't know you still had that."

"Yeah, we're on the second generation, turns out every one has its own different defensive properties, so I don't seem to be getting any closer to not getting hurt."

"Oh."

There was a long pause.

"A-Are you going to open it?"

"Are they still staring?"

Lifting his head, Neville took a very not furtive look around while pretending to take a drink of his pumpkin juice. Unfortunately the ruse proved to require a little too much dexterity from his clumsily bandaged hand, and the pumpkin juice splattered down the front of his robes, the goblet clattering against the great stone floor.

"Well if they weren't, they are now." Ginny sighed, trying hard not to laugh.

Neville had bent down to the goblet and when his head poked back up above the table, she was surprised to find that he was fighting laughter as well.

"Yeah, but they're staring at me now, aren't they?"

Ginny just gaped at him.

"Neville," She whispered in awe, "did you do that on purpose?"

He shook his head. "Wish I could say I did."

Lifting his wand to his shirt front he muttered, "_Scourgify_," looking immensely pleased when the spell actually did result in a pristine white shirt. "Getting rather good at that one, aren't I?"

"Oh, Neville."

"So, are you ever going to read it?"

She shook her head numbly. "I can't . . . not here, not with all these people."

"Go back to the common room then."

"Yeah, but there'll be other Gryffindors there, won't there? And they'll all know . . . who it's from . . ."

"Right then." He stood up abruptly.

"Wha-?"

"I've got to set up for the third year's lessons any way. You can just tag along, find a nice quiet spot behind a bubotuber or something." He raised his hand in a kind of half signal to Luna, indicating that they were leaving. The dreamy blonde would be along eventually . . . sometime this week.

It wasn't until they were halfway across the grounds that Ginny spoke again.

"Thank you."

"For what?"

"Getting me out of there."

"Yeah, well," Neville shrugged, and of all things looked profoundly embarrassed about it, like he'd been caught melting another cauldron in potions. She had the distinct impression that if she thanked him again he'd turn around and run away, or dissolve into the ground. So instead she fell silently in step beside him just enjoying the fact that she was outside, away from the hundreds of people who felt they had a right to know all about her private life.

As they approached the greenhouses, Neville began to pick leaves from the bushes, seemingly at random. Once they reached the door, however, Ginny found that the act hadn't been random at all.

Sorting the leaves out his palm, he quite literally _fed_ them to the door lock one by one, muttering to himself under his breath what she guessed was the correct order. As the lock devoured the last one, the door sprang open.

"Keep to the right. The left side has the more . . . erm aggressive plants." Neville directed, already stripping off his robes and rolling up his shirtsleeves.

Skirting a particularly vicious looking plant that she didn't recognize, Ginny made her way over to sit below what she hoped was a relatively safe one composed entirely of tiny white leaves, looking to her friend for confirmation of her choice. Neville glanced up from slipping on the dragon-hide gloves and apron, and flashed her a quick reassuring smile that said she was fine there. Ginny watched as he headed over to the far left corner to deal with what looked like the meaner cousin of the plant she'd been trying to avoid. A smile still playing at the corners of her mouth, she looked around trying to see this place through Neville's eyes, to see the beauty in a plant that might eat you or kill you. She had never really liked the greenhouse. It was too warm and smelled of dank earth, but right now it was her favorite place in the world because no one was paying the slightest bit of attention to her.

So now she could read Harry's letter in privacy.

Except she didn't.

Ginny had never considered herself a coward. You learned not to fear much when you had six brothers because despite their determination to protect you from anything in the world that did not seem to extend to them—being hung upside from the garret window by Fred so that George could try to catch you on his broom got you over your fear of heights, having Ron dare you to steal Percy's prefect's badge cured you of being scared of both yelling and rule-breaking, and well whatever other fears she had they'd pretty much gotten trumped by her first year at school. Yes, all in all Ginny Weasley felt she had every right to be in Gryffindor.

So why was she terrified of a little piece of paper?

Because for all her bravery she hadn't gotten over being scared for others. She thought of them constantly, what they were doing, what dangers they facing. She thought of Hermione, the closest she'd come to having a real female best-friend prior to Luna. She thought of Ron, her brother, her greatest champion and tormentor in one. She thought of Harry . . .

Merlin, she thought of Harry so much it was amazing she could think of anything else. At eleven, she thought she loved him, imagined romanticized stories of dragons and white knights only to find out they weren't romantic at all, just scary. At fourteen her romantic fantasies had transformed into real feelings that extended beyond simple admiration of an icon. She liked the way he never thought himself quite good enough, but still dared to dream of being the best; liked the way he went through life so intensely, felt everything deeply, and displayed it to all the world; but most of all she had liked the way he had treated Luna and Neville, with respect and understanding because he knew what it was like to separate, apart from the world. That had been the moment when she crossed the line from fantasy to reality when she moved from worshiping Harry Potter the Boy Who Lived to simply loving Harry the boy who couldn't learn to bite his tongue when it would be best for him.

And so now at sixteen, she was discovering that loving someone real could be far more scary than loving a white knight.

She was terrified that if she opened that envelope she'd have to learn they were hungry, or cold, or hurt, or about to go do something noble and stupid. She'd spent so much time working on being bitter and imagining the trio laughing together over butterbeer in some obscure inn without her, spent so much time being angry with him for not taking her along on his grand adventure. She didn't want to open that letter and learn the truth because being angry with Harry was so much easier than being terrified for him.

"You still haven't read it."

She didn't look up, just stared at the pair of scuffed, dirt covered shoes before her and nodded.

"Why not?" Neville squatted down to look at her, and she was forced to turn her head so she wouldn't have to meet his gaze.

"I'm scared."

"Scared?" He repeated the word as a question, his voice conveying how very odd he found it to think of her being scared of anything.

"He hasn't written in so long. What if- What if something's happened and that's why he's writing now? What if Ron's hurt or Hermione's been kidnapped or they've found the last horcrux and they're finally going to face him?"

"Maybe they just finally got to a place where he felt it was safe to write," he reassured her. Picking up the letter from where she had left it on the floor, he brushed off the traces of dirt and stared at it as though he could force it to relinquish its secrets. Defeated by its refusal to do so, he extended the small roll of parchment back to her.

"You read it." The words were out of her mouth before she'd even really formed the thought.

Obviously startled by her request, Neville lost his balance and had to drop one knee to the ground to keep from pitching forward. "I- I don't think . . ."

"Just the first few paragraphs, you know just to get the gist . . ."

_To know whether they're okay._

Neville stared at the ground for awhile, weighing the parchment in his hands, and with it all she was asking both said and unsaid. Then he nodded slowly accepting the responsibility. Carefully he unrolled the parchment, smoothing it out against his leg. Then, pressing his lips together in a grimace like he was about to do something distasteful, he lifted the letter and began to scan it, his mouth moving slightly as he muttered the words to himself.

She watched his face avidly, trying to make out the slightest of movements, to zero in on anything that might be the tiniest indication, but none came, his expression was blank, wooden as he read Harry's words. Then he stopped abruptly, a flush coming over his face that could rival her own.

"What?" She whispered fearfully.

"I- I shouldn't be reading this." Thrusting the letter back at her before she could protest, he scrambled up, stumbling a little in his haste.

"Neville! What is it? Are they okay?"

"They're fine. Just fine." His voice had gone hoarse and just the tiniest bit cold.

It took a moment for Ginny to process that this was what Neville Longbottom looked like angry. She didn't think she'd ever seen him like this, not this quiet, tempered anger, like he was running it through a filter, keeping the larger pieces inside. Neville could have gone through his whole life angry, and nobody would ever know.

Dropping her gaze to the paper in her hand she scanned the first few paragraphs, trying to find what had caused him to react like this. Then she saw it, tucked halfway down the page

_We slept last night in a barn, a bit mad, huh? Hedwig was right at home. Well, there were stars, like I haven't seen since leaving Hogwarts, hundreds of them in the sky. I could have sat there forever staring at them, and I did for so long that Ron and Hermione went to sleep on me. They had kind of fallen against each other and I just looked at them and thought how much I missed you, missed holding you, touching you. I miss everything about you Gin, your laugh, your hair. I wanted to be with you at that moment, talking with you, kissing you. You would have looked so beautiful in the moonlight. So sometime, when you get a chance, sneak up to the Astronomy Tower and think of me, think of us being together._

"Bastard."

"I'm sorry. I read too far." Neville's voice was still hoarse, tight with anger that she now realize was self-directed.

"Not you. Him," Ginny sighed, suddenly tired as all the fear leaked out of her. If Harry was going to tell her anything important, it would have been in the first few paragraphs.

He turned at that, slowly, tentatively as though expecting her to change her mind at any moment and turn on him. "Why?"

"Well, I mean, there's nothing there is there?" She gestured disgustedly at the letter. "A lot of rot about the stars and my hair--"

"I thought it was pretty."

"But it's not what I want to know. I want to know how they're doing, whether they've found any of the horcruxes. I want to know if he's scared or if he's had any more nightmares. Instead, all I get is he misses me . . ." Her hand tightened on the parchment. "Well if he misses me so much, why didn't he take me with him? Then he wouldn't have to miss me at all."

"He's trying to protect you."

"I don't need protecting." Ginny shot back. "If it was you . . ."

Neville tensed obviously finding the thought more than a little disquieting. Softly he mumbled, "It wouldn't be me."

"But if it was. If you were the one to go out after Voldemort, you'd take me with you wouldn't you?"

Making a great show of being engrossed in tapping the dirt off the toe of his right shoe, he just shrugged. "That's different. I need you."

Ginny faltered, her rant derailed by Neville's simple, guileless admission. Even as her mind was quick to point out that he'd just made her case for her, her heart did a little flip in a way that made it impossible to continue down the road she'd been heading. So instead she replied in the only way she could.

"I'd take you with me, too."

He didn't look up, but she could see the corners of his mouth curve in a shy smile. It meant something, her inclusion of him, to him it meant something and in some dark little corner of her heart she wondered whether it would mean as much to Harry.

"Where are we off to?"

Luna stood in the doorway, bouncing a little on the balls of her feet like she could be packed in the next five minutes if you just said the word.

"Theoretical Voldemort hunt, fifth of November." Neville responded without skipping a beat. He had adapted rather well over the past year to conversing with the dreamy blonde.

"Oh." She sounded rather disappointed. "I have tea that day."

"We'll send our regrets then." Ginny waved her hand airily, "Dear Dark Lord, thank you for your kind invitation for a final stand off, but as the day is bad for our dear friend and as we could not possibly attend without her, we regretfully must decline."

She was aware that there was a certain blasphemy to joking about this, but honestly living with the constant dictated seriousness of these times was oppressive, and somehow Luna gave them all the permission and freedom to be more than a bit absurd.

"Thank you." Luna breathed. Closing the door behind her, she came to sit down across from Ginny. "I came as soon as I heard."

"Heard what?"

"That there was a letter."

Still standing, Neville looked over her head to catch Ginny's eye, and the two shared an amused smile. It had to have been at least half an hour since they had left the great hall.

Oblivious both to their shared amusement and the fact that one of the plants was now playing with a strand of her straggly blonde hair, Luna leaned forward, her face alight with curiosity. "Have you opened it yet?"

"Yes."

"They weren't taken by heliopaths were they?"

Neville had to cough into his hand to cover a snort, and Ginny pressed her lips to keep from laughing. They had almost perfected not being shocked into giggles by Luna's statements, mostly because she was sometimes disturbingly and uncomfortably accurate, but every once in awhile she would catch them completely off guard, and they couldn't help it.

"No," Ginny managed to get out in a strangled gasp between fits of suppressed giggles, "No, no heliopaths."

"Oh, Teddy will be relieved."

Looking over to Neville, Ginny mouthed 'Teddy?' But he just shrugged, apparently just as clueless as her.

"He was very worried when he saw Hedwig come. He was afraid it would be Valkyries, but of course I informed him that would be ridiculous." Then her eyes went wide with what was obviously a very disturbing thought. "They weren't taken by Valkyries, were they?

Ginny just shook her head. She didn't think it was any more ridiculous than Heliopaths, particularly because she was pretty sure Valkyries actually existed, but she held her tongue.

"Luna? Who is Teddy?" Neville asked, looking like he was stealing himself to discover that Teddy was a twelve-foot high manticore that visited only between the hours of seven and seven-thirty in the morning.

Looking up at him like he had just asked whether sparklipunks really existed, Luna responded as though it were the most obvious thing in the world, "Titus. Only he doesn't really look like a Titus, does he? So I call him Teddy."

"Flint!" Neville spluttered, "You call Titus Flint, Teddy?"

It took Ginny a moment to process who they were talking about, but then she suddenly remember the dark-haired Slytherin boy who was built like a tank and had opined that it was a "bloody crime" none of them would ever have a sparklipunk. In truth Ginny thought he looked quite a bit more like a Titus, and she wondered if Marcus Flint's little brother knew that she would now forever equate him with a stuffed animal.

Before she could stop herself, Ginny tacked on a question of her own. "To his face?"

"Well, he won't let me talk to his feet. That would be forward."

"Oh, right."

And that was the end of it. There were times when it was pointless to argue with Luna, and this was one of them, though from the expression on Neville's face he wanted to try. True he had been the one to contact Titus, to bring him into the fold, and display unquestioning trust at their meetings by dueling with him when the others wouldn't, but apparently that trust did not extend as far as Flint allowing Luna to call him Teddy. Ginny made a mental note to try to explain to Luna that she should never tell Neville if she and—_Oh Merlin_—Teddy, progressed to foot talking.

"So what does it say?"

"Read it yourself." Ginny gestured listlessly to the now much abused missile. In truth, she didn't really care right now if it got tacked up on the Gryffindor notice board, for the entire world to see, just as long as she didn't have to explain it to anyone else or think about it at all.

With a flick of her wand Luna called the roll of parchment over and began to read it far more carefully than either Neville or Ginny, her great eyes moving from word to word and then back to the start at the next line. _Like one of those typewingers_ _or whatever it is dad keeps bringing home_. As Luna finished the second page, which neither of the others had actually ever gotten to, she sighed longingly.

"Which one of you is keeping her?"

"Keeping who?"

"Hedwig. She'll be ever so angry with him. She thinks the owlery is beneath her."

"Wait- What?"

"He wants you to keep Hedwig, says he can't have her with him anymore."

Ginny closed her eyes. She distinctly _did not _want to keep Harry's prized pet. She did not want to feed it, or tend it, or even look at it. The last thing she needed was a great, bloody, daily reminder of her absentee love, or whatever the hell he had decided he was.

"Neville?"

"No." The older boy shook his head in that firm way he rarely managed but never backed down from. "I'm not keeping her. Beastly creature hates me."

"Well, I'm not doing it," Ginny grumbled, slumping against the cabinets petulantly. "Great prat didn't even bother to ask, did he?"

It had been meant as a rhetorical question, but Luna was not well acquainted with the concept. Scanning the last few lines of the letter, she looked back up. "No."

"Of course not, Harry decided it was his right to decide, just like everything else."

"Can I keep her?" Luna asked breathlessly, obviously hoping past all hope. "We'll get along fabulously. I speak owlish, you know."

Ginny swallowed a rather biting comment about the majestic bird's reaction to a girl who wore radishes on her ears and nodded. "Sure. I bet she'll be over the moon about it."

"Do you think so? I really would like a moon frog for my collection." Then without even so much as taking a breath she added, "They must be about to go somewhere really dangerous."

The hair-pin turn of thought was so sharp, that Ginny jerked back in an effort to follow it, banging her head against one of the cabinets. "Wha- Why do you say that?"

Neville nudged Luna with the toe of his shoe a little harder that necessary, so that it was almost a kick.

"Shut up," he muttered under his breath.

Coming to a kneel, Ginny reached out and laid a restraining hand on her friend's leg. "No. I want to hear. What makes you say that they're going somewhere really dangerous?"

Luna blinked at her, twice. "Well, he goes everywhere with Hedwig, doesn't he?"

She felt her hand tighten convulsively around the Neville's pant leg, felt him crouch beside her, his hand moving cover hers, but it was all somehow separate, far away.

"He didn't say a word," she whispered in a voice that wasn't her own, "not one _damn_ word."

"He probably didn't want you to worry." Neville murmured.

"Well, he screwed that up rather spectacularly, didn't he? If he didn't want me to worry, he should have taken me with him, instead of leaving me here, where I've got nothing to do _but_ worry. But of course Harry decided I couldn't be risked. Harry _decided_ that if . . ." Suddenly needing to be far away from absolutely everyone, she stood up. "Well, I'll be the one left, won't I? And apparently that was Harry's decision, too."

She had almost made it all the way out of the greenhouse, when Neville's voice called after her, "What about your letter?"

"Burn it."

"Ginny . . ."

She spun on her heel, and in one fluid movement, before either of her friends had a chance to stop her, raised her wand. "_Incendio_."

She didn't stay to watch it become ashes.

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Thanks to all of you who've made it this far. I'd like to give a special wave to KatieBell70, whose Moondance is one of the frickin greatest Lupin/Tonks fics out there. You reviewed my work! I lived on that for days. Also, thanks to all my PR reviewers who followed me over to the new fandom.

As always, Comments and Criticism are appreciated.

Panache


	3. Battle Wounds

Disclaimer: We all know its JKR's and not mine. I'd like to claim Titus (aka Teddy), but he seems to have a mind of his own.

Author's Note: There's really nothing to say about this part other than I hope you enjoy it, and if you're a PR fan too . . . I'm trying, but it's a damn hard part.

* * *

" . . . Slughorn . . ."

" . . . deal with it . . . me . . . go . . ."

There were voices, somewhere, far away at the edges of the black that enveloped her mind. Familiar voices that called her, caused her to reached out to them, to fight her way back from the blackness. Bit by bit the words became clearer.

"Damn, do you think he saw us?"

"Don't know. Couldn't see if he had his head on the right way."

"Luna . . ."

"Head."

"Ow!" Ginny let out groan, as she felt her skull bump against something hard, jolting her back into the world completely.

"Sorry."

"Neville?" His name was raw on her throat as though she'd forgotten how to talk.

There was a breath against her ear, and then her friend's labored voice, trying to reassure her and perhaps himself, said, "Hang on, we're almost there."

She was moving, but though she heard the pounding of feet against stone, she was quickly coming to realize that they weren't her own. Then they stopped, and she felt herself shifted, her body adjusted to be cradled more securely in another's arms, and instinctively she brought her own arms around her transporter's neck.

"Bloody hell, you're heavy." Neville grunted.

"Thanks," she muttered, her croaky voice undermining any attempts at sarcasm.

"You okay?"

"I- I don't know. What happened?"

"You were about to open one of Snape's old notebooks and then . . ." Luna sucked in a breath, "you weren't."

"Oh . . . right." Ginny managed to flop her head back a little so that she could look up at Neville for explanation, when something terrifying managed to process its way through her mind.

"I- I can't see." The words came out in the faintest of terrified whispers.

"What!"

She whimpered a little, frustrated by her inability to scream. Burying her face against his neck, so that she wouldn't have to keep not seeing anything, she repeated, "I can't see you."

"Damn!"

Suddenly they were moving again, no quicker than before, but with a different kind of urgency, towards something rather than away. Pressed up against Neville's chest, she could hear him panting with exertion, obviously pushing his body far beyond its normal limits. And then she was tumbling, her body landing on a soft mattress and protesting even that.

"What has happened?" Madam Pomfrey's concerned, but commanding voice demanded, and Ginny knew she was in the infirmary.

"She can't- can't-" Neville was struggling to force the words out between labored breaths, but overall failing miserably.

"Oh, sit down boy. Put your head between your legs. Now, Miss Lovegood, please let me know what has happened."

"He carried her from across the castle. She's heavy, and he's out of shape."

Neville let out something between a groan and muffled curse that Ginny couldn't make out but would bet wasn't complimentary.

"Yes I surmised that, but I meant what happened to Ms. Weasley."

There was a long pause, while they tried to think of a convincing story that did not include the part where they broke into Slughorn's office to locate Snape's old journals for Harry. Then all three of them spoke at once.

"We were practicing and my spell backfired." Neville volunteered.

"My potion exploded." Ginny explained.

"Toothy-voluptomarls."

Madam Pomfrey was silent for a long while, and Ginny would bet anything they were about to have McGonagall come sweeping down on them. She wondered if the Gryffindor quidditch team would even care that she was going to be in detention from now until next year. She knew she didn't. They were pretty much rubbish without Harry and Ron anyway, and finding that damn snitch was hideously boring.

"I hexed her."

Ginny's head whirled around, and only too late did she remember that she couldn't see the speaker, or anything else for that matter. Still the gruff, slightly arrogant voice of Titus Flint was unmistakable.

"Why didn't you tell me this in the first place?" Pomfrey demanded with an edge that betrayed how dubious she found the explanation.

"They're just trying to cover up their own arses, so they don't have to admit to being out in the corridors after hours. Perfect little Gryffindors, trying to keep house points."

"I'm a Ravenclaw." Luna reminded him happily.

Still Titus continued on as though he hadn't heard. "Thought I'd be trying to do the same, keep everything hush hush. Well, jokes on you Longbottom. Slughorn caught me. Figured if I went down, we'd all go. We'll have detention together for weeks, doesn't that sound fun?"

"Piss off." Neville retorted, sounding a bit too realistic in his anger.

"And why exactly did you hex Ms. Weasley?"

"I was aiming for Longbottom actually, but Peeves jostled me."

Ginny had to admit Flint was fast on his feet. He lied smoothly, effortlessly; his voice laced with disturbingly Slytherin-sounding disdain.

"Who you were attempting to hex because?" Madam Pomfrey sounded slightly less dubious and Ginny was beginning to think that despite the incredibly flimsy excuse they just might get away with it on sheer nerve, when Luna piped up.

"Because he was trying to kiss me."

Neville groaned again, and Ginny went back to considering who could replace her as seeker.

"I see." The school nurse sounded like she saw all too well, but miraculously only moved to examine Ginny and then hurried off to prepare whatever was needed.

"I love that woman," Titus breathed, "Knows how to keep her nose where it belongs. Give her a half-plausible excuse, and she'll shut her eyes to everything but the injury."

There was a slight rustle and Ginny felt the bed sink a little as Titus sat beside her. "How are you, red?"

"I can't see," she replied frankly.

"Damn, must have been a hell of a Caecitus charm he had on that thing." The Slytherin's voice held a kind of disgusted admiration for his former head of house. "Blind 'em. It's what I'd do if I didn't want someone to read what I'd written. Well, we're not a pretty sight anyway. Longbottom here looks like he's run the grounds with one of those blast-ended skrewts on his tail. What happened, kid?"

Normally Neville took the younger boy's insistence on referring to him as kid, with a kind of grudging humor, but Ginny knew there was still certain amount of resentment over the moniker, and given the all too real-sounding anger she'd heard earlier, decided she should intervene. "He carried me from dungeons."

There was a long pause and then Flint let out a sharp bark of laughter.

"What's so funny?"

"You're a wizard. Why didn't you just levitate her here?"

"Oh, bloody hell." Neville groaned, "Luna, why didn't you say anything?"

"Oh!" She sounded startled by the idea. "I thought you wanted to carry her."

Titus snorted again. "You fickle dog, and here I thought it was my girl you were trying to snog."

Ginny heard Luna's sigh and felt the bed sink a little more as Flint pulled someone onto his lap. Merlin she hoped it was Luna.

"I wasn't--" Neville began to protest, but then gave up. "How'd it go?"

"Well, I managed convince Slughorn that it was just me. He thinks I was trying to steal lovage for an experimental befuddlement draft. Now I've got to come up with an _actual_ experimental befuddlement draft by next week so we can work on it together during my detention. I don't even like potions."

"Oh, I'll help. I _love_ potions." Luna volunteered.

Titus laughed softly. "You're failing potions."

"Yes, but that's only because I don't always turn in the homework."

"Do the toothy-voluptomarls eat it?"

"Of course not, I made them up."

"My mistake." Titus growled, and there was a shifting of weight on the bed again.

No, they weren't, they couldn't be. Ginny was suddenly very glad she couldn't see and really wished there was a deafening charm on that journal, too.

"Ugh," Neville let out a strained sound of disgust. "Hey! Isn't it going to look odd if you two are sitting here, snogging, when Pomfrey comes back?"

"I told you. She doesn't care. Woman would have made a damn good Slytherin."

"Then leave because you're making me ill."

"Do you need a dragon scale? They're very useful for anti-nausea potions. I've got some in my room." Luna asked with concern.

"No . . ." Neville let out another strangled sound, "I'll be fine if he'll stop kissing your neck . . . a different spot doesn't help, Flint!"

"Teddy, stop kissing me. Neville's going to throw up."

"Right, guess we're going to have to leave, then." Ginny felt her bed shift, suddenly relieved of its dual burden. "See you all around. Think of me while I'm serving my sentence in the dungeons. It is a far far better thing . . ."

But the rest of his declaration was muffled as the infirmary doors slammed shut.

"Insufferable git." Neville muttered under his breath.

"You just don't like him because he's . . . what exactly is he doing with Luna?"

"I don't want to think about it. Whatever happened to talking to his feet being too forward?"

"I guess they got past that."

"He's a Slytherin."

"You trust him enough to let him throw hexes at you."

"That's different."

"How?"

Neville didn't seem to have a good answer to that, so he reverted back to his original protest. "He's still an insufferable git."

"Yes, but he's Luna's insufferable git."

"You're just lucky you couldn't see them."

Silence.

"I didn't mean that."

"I know." Blindly she reached out towards the sound of his voice, trying to let him know she understood, and it was okay.

He caught her hand and squeezed it. "It'll be okay."

Ginny tightened her fingers over his to prevent him pulling away. Unable to see anything, she needed someone's touch to orient her. Neville's would be more than fine. "You really think so?"

Madam Pomfrey's sudden bustling presence prevented him from having to answer that. She felt the nurse's business-like touch on her temples, and then the swish of a wand in front of her eyes.

"Well, that should lift the charm, but it looks like it's designed to cause some lingering damage."

Neville's hand tightened on hers. "Can you fix it?"

"Yes, I should think so, with several days care, maybe more if it's not acting the way I think it is. Now, out."

"I was hoping to stay with her." He protested.

"Nonsense, Ms. Weasley needs rest right now. You can come visit her tomorrow morning."

"Its okay, Neville. I'll be fine." Ginny put on what she hoped was a brave face.

"If you're sure . . ."

"Of course she's sure. This is an infirmary, nothings going to happen here. Now out or I will have the Headmistress inquire into this entire matter."

There was nothing for it. With one more reassuring squeeze of her hand, Neville left.

* * *

Ginny had almost succeeded in forcing herself towards the mutable barriers of sleep, despite terribly foul-smelling poultice Pomfrey had place over her eyes, and an irrational fear that if she truly succeeded in reaching her dreams Snape would take control of her mind the way Voldemort had done with Harry her fourth year. It was absolutely mad, this fear that by opening that diary she had somehow caught the attention of Dumbledore's betrayer, that Snape would risk being caught to exact some kind of petty revenge on an inconsequential foot-soldier. Still every rustle of fabric in the too silent infirmary was the swish of former Potions Master's billowing black robes as he swept down on her. She was so on edge that when fabric brushed against her leg she almost screamed, and it was only the thick hand clamping down on her mouth that prevented her.

"Calm down red. It's just me."

"T-Titus?"

"In the flesh, well not that you can see that."

"What are you doing here?"

"Thought you could use a bit of company. As I'm already up to my ears in detentions, I appointed myself your night guard. In for a penny, in for a pound. 'Sides Longbottom'll have the day shift pretty much covered, and I don't think he'll take kindly to me being 'round for awhile."

Ginny snorted softly. "You'd better be up on shield charms by the next D.A. meeting, or you'll be the one in the infirmary. Did you have to dangle Luna in front of him like that?"

"You know, I'm a pleasant chap, don't understand his objection."

"Don't you?" She shot back, her voice dripping with sarcasm. She would have thought that anyone with half a brain could have figured out that Neville would want to pummel anyone who got to Luna first, and she'd always given Titus more credit than that.

Flint was quiet for a long moment as though debating what he wanted to say in response to that. What he finally settled on wasn't particularly illuminating.

"It's not about Luna." He brushed a strand of hair from her face. "Well it is, but not for the reasons you think."

"Now what's that supposed to mean?"

But the Slytherin boy didn't answer, just pressed a hand to her lips, and then she heard the crisp steps of Pomfrey as the nurse made her night rounds. It wasn't until she heard the steps fade away and the office door closed that Titus removed his hand.

"Are you mad?" Ginny hissed. "If Pomfrey had seen you, you would have had detention for the rest of the year and not with Slughorn."

"Did you know your face turns the same color as your hair when you're angry?"

"Give me my wand, so I can jinx your arrogant, reckless arse."

"Calm down, red. I had Luna put a disillusionment charm on me. She's a fair witch when she puts her mind to it."

"Which is never."

"Ah, but see there were Crumple-Horned Snorkels, or something like that, involved this time."

"Snorkacks"

"Right those. Her dad taught it to her when they were hunting them over the summer. Works, too, almost . . .you can only make out one shoe and my right hand, which I'm just keeping in my pocket."

"Luna learned a disillusionment charm, so she could hunt something that doesn't exist?"

"Hey, I'm not so sure 'bout that. There were some very convincing shadows moving in those pictures. I'm supposed to go with her next summer. Mum'll flip." He sounded positively gleeful about it. It was very odd to listen to a boy who looked like he could break you in half and would if given the opportunity, talk about her friend in such affectionate tones, but she was beginning to understand why Luna called him Teddy.

"Titus?"

"Hmm?"

"Why are you here?"

"Told you, I'm the night guard."

"No . . . I mean . . ." She licked her lips, trying to find a non-offensive way to ask what she wanted to know. "Why are you with us? Not the D.A. I get that, but why Neville and me and why . . .""

He cut her off. "Well Longbottom's easy. Chose me, didn't he? It's not everyone who'd invite a Slytherin with a Death-Eater in the family to your little group of fighters for the right. Can't exactly turn your back on an ally when you don't have any. 'Sides boy's got style when he chooses to show it."

"He's older than you."

"See and that's why I like you. You've got pluck and loyalty. Plus the two of you are tougher than you look, and I respect strength. But of course what you really want to ask is why Luna?"

She nodded.

He was silent again, and Ginny held her breath afraid he'd leave, insulted that she didn't trust him, or that she was questioning why someone would like a girl he so obviously did. She liked having someone to talk to, and despite Titus's brashness he was 'a pleasant chap' as he'd put it.

Then she heard the chair creak as he leaned toward her and in a conspiratorial whisper confided. "She doesn't giggle."

"What?"

"Have you ever been around Slytherin girls?"

"Not for more than a minute if I can help it."

"Good choice. They're all complete uninteresting cows. Giggle delicately at the appropriate times at all our jokes, which aren't funny by the way, without a single actual thought in their heads because that's what Mummy and Daddy told 'em they'd need to do to snag an appropriately pureblood husband."

"So you like her because she's not a Slytherin girl?"

"Look, Luna may be barking mad, but at least she's got her own ideas, and she _really _laughs, at all the wrong times sure, but only when _she_ thinks something is funny, not because she was expected to." His voice had grown warm and affectionate. "A fella is never going to get bored with a girl like that, more like the other way around. She's too damn interesting. Last interesting female my house ever produced was Bellatrix Lestrange."

Ginny shivered a little at the appreciative tone that had come into Flint's voice at the mention of the witch who had tortured Neville's parents into madness. "You were doing fine until that."

"Sorry," But he didn't really sound all that sorry.

"She's evil!" Ginny spat contemptuously. "She's never been anything but evil, and never will be."

"You're wrong. She made a turn somewhere, don't know where, but she did. Everyone makes turns—turns for the better, turns for the worse. Just because I hate what she's become doesn't mean I can't appreciate who she might have been. Whatever else she is, she isn't spineless."

"It's awful to admire someone who could do what she did to another person."

"Typical Gryffindor," Flint snorted, his voice going cold with warning, "You all think there's types of people—people who can do something like that and people who can't. Everyone's got that in them, even your precious Potter. The only difference is how much it takes to bring it to the surface. Luna understands that, and I'd bet Longbottom's got a pretty good grasp of the idea. You need to get on board or you won't survive this war."

Ginny's insides went dead, as the sharp truth of his words lashed out at her, cutting into her heart, and she felt something coil within her in response, just as cold and calculating as any Slytherin jibe. "Is that what you tell yourself? How you excuse your brother's actions?"

"Listen," he hissed in her ear, suddenly close, and she could feel little flecks of spittle on her face, "my brother was good man. Not a shiny bleeding heart, sure. He played quidditch too rough and did other things too rough as well, but he loved our Mum something fierce, stayed with her when she had the tremors, got her firewhiskey when nothing else worked. By thirteen he could knock my dad flat on his back. By fifteen he'd sent the old man packing. Then when he was eighteen—"

She tried to turn away, tried not to hear whatever terrible thing he was going to say next, but his hand clamped down on her jaw, holding her in place, "No you're going to hear this!—when he was eighteen the bitch hit me, knocked me out cold with a bottle of firewhiskey because I couldn't transfigure her slippers to amuse her. I don't know exactly what happened, but when I came to Mum was twitching on floor, and he was gone. He'd done the Cruciatus curse on her, on a woman who he loved more than she deserved. It was obvious what he'd done, but she'd never admit it, protected him to the end. Still don't get to come back to your family after that, do you? So he found a new one. Next time I saw him, he had the dark mark."

"I'm sorry." Ginny whispered, choking back tears, trying not to imagine what it would be like to live in a place where love was so intertwined with pain. The words seemed to snap something in Titus, and he released her face.

"Don't want your pity for either of us. Bastard made his choice." He sunk onto the bed, sounding weary, defeated, as though he'd told himself this too many times.

"Whatever your mom did doesn't excuse him."

"Don't think I ever said it did, but just in case you're still thinking that's only something that happens to those of us who wear green, ask Longbottom sometime what he'd do if he ever got the Lestranges alone, or ask your white-knight boyfriend what he plans to do to Snape if he finds him. I don't think either of them would stop with a body-bind."

"I think-" Ginny took a shaky breath, "I think I'd like you to go now."

"Yeah," Titus's voice was equally shaky. "I think that's probably a good idea."

But even as he said it, his thick arms were pulling her up, wrapping her in a great hug that was so fierce, she wondered who it was for, and though she stiffened against him at first, tried to fight him off, she soon found herself clutching him just as tightly and thinking of Percy, thinking that maybe she knew how he felt . . . just a little.

"That bastard is going to pay." He whispered in that same hard, determined, Slytherin voice that saw no boundaries to achieving his end, and though she didn't know whether he was talking about Voldemort or his own brother, she found herself responding with equal conviction.

"Yes, yes he will."

* * *

Thanks for reading. Comments and Criticisms welcomed as always.

Panache (who really wishes original characters wouldn't demand to purge their souls when she's trying to write a seminar paper).


	4. Sick Leave

Disclaimer: We all know its JKR's and not mine.

Author's Note: So this part took me forever. Witness the pause in updating. I think it went through about seven different incarnations. I hope the final one meets with your approval.

- + - + - + - + - + -

It took her a moment, in waking, to realize that it wasn't still night, that the darkness was not the world's, but her own, to understand that the bed was not her luxurious Gryffindor four-poster, but the stark infirmary cots. Even as her mind reassembled these few hard truths, she became aware of the pieces that were missing from the picture.

"Titus . . ." Even as she groaned the name, reaching out with her feet to end of the bed where he had sat sentry, she knew he was gone, but . . . she wasn't alone. The Slytherin's overly large, almost dangerous presence had been replaced by a far quieter, safer one.

"Hello." Neville murmured, causing Ginny to turn her head in the direction of his voice. "You're awake. Th-that's good."

"How long have I been asleep?"

"Just the night, it's eleven now."

She'd been reaching toward the sound of his voice as he spoke, expecting to feel his hand answering hers at any moment, but it didn't come, leaving her grasping at air. Disconcerted, she drew her arm back to her body, curling her fingers into a small fist. "Neville?"

"I can get Titus if you want." He offered, his voice laced with hurt and betrayal, and she realized how he must have interpreted the name on her lips.

"Neville--"

"I think he has transfiguration right now, but after--"

"Stop being an idiot. I don't want Titus. I want you."

"You called out for him." He pointed out quietly.

"Because he had been here during the night, and he wasn't here anymore."

"He snuck back in?"

"Luna disillusioned him, so he appointed himself the night guard."

"She never told me she could do a disillusionment charm." He grumbled, "If I'd have known I would have come. I- I wanted to stay."

"I know." This time his hand met hers when she extended it. "But I'd rather have you now when I'm awake. You have to sleep sometime and last night you needed to . . ."

Her voice trailed off as another fact slipped back into her seemingly, infinitely fractured mind, and it bothered her how long this one thing had taken to work its way into place. "Harry . . . did Harry come?"

She had her response in the way his hand tensed in hers, in his whispered, "I'm sorry."

Cruel was the only word for it, because despite her self-righteous indignation earlier in the semester, despite the momentary bought of independence that had caused her to burn Harry's first letter, when the numbers on their D.A. galleons had changed, all her resolved had melted. She'd waited anxiously by the Gryffindor fireplace for the sight of his face, for the few brief instructions he'd given, and ever since then she'd been hanging on equally anxiously for his next scheduled visit.

So it was cruel, so incredibly cruel that after all this time of missing him, of wanting to speak with him for only a moment, of waiting for her chance, when it had come, she'd be struck down, prevented from seeing or hearing or speaking with him by the very thing that had brought him to her again. Of course he hadn't really come for her, that would have been frivolous, reckless to the extreme, and Harry had put aside recklessness since Dumbledore's death, put it aside in favor of calculating efficiency.

No, Harry had not come for her. He had come for answers, for the secrets that lay within his nemesis's writings, convinced that clues to where Snape might be, how Snape might think, lay in reading everything the former potions master had written, and so they had been charged with trying to obtain access to those few items still left in Slughorn's office. Journals the old potions teacher was not even supposed to have, McGonogall having confiscated and examined every other possession of her former colleague. But these had been potions specific notebooks, too valuable to Slughorn in their innovations and insights for the ambitious old man to relinquish just because they happened to be written by the wizard who had committed the most notorious murder since that of James and Lily Potter.

Still, she had been anticipating the moment of conveying those much sought after secrets, of seeing his countenance shine with admiration at her daring, and of this time stealing a kiss without regard for how the flames might singe her hair.

And he had come. He had come, and she had been here, and it had been Neville he'd talked to, Neville who'd had to admit their failure and her injury. She could just imagine how horrified Harry would have been, how he'd berate himself for putting her in danger, and it occurred to her that he might have berated Neville, too.

Strangely enough, it was that thought which caused her to burst into tears.

Ginny had never been a delicate girl, no matter what her brothers might have thought, and in keeping with this she was not a delicate crier. In fact, if Neville's currently frozen body was anything go by, she was quite a frightening one.

"For Merlin's-sake, Neville," she gasped out between sobs, "don't just sit there, hold me!"

A brief war seemed to take place inside her friend, as he weighed which option he found more terrifying—disobeying her command or obeying it and actually holding her. Apparently disobeying her proved the more frightening prospect, and the bed shifted with his weight, as calloused hands, which she knew from memory had dirt under the fingernails, drew her into an awkward, fumbling, and not terribly comfortable embrace.

But it was an embrace all the same, different from the one the she wanted—too long arms cradling her in the crook of a too high shoulder—yet somehow it was what she needed at that moment. Shifting against him, bringing a steady hand up to calm his trembling ones, granting him permission to comfort, provided a kind of comfort in itself, a kind of control over her world that she lacked all too often.

They stayed that way for what seemed like seconds and days simultaneously. Neville holding her as she cried out all her frustration, all her loneliness, Neville stroking her hair as her sobs quieted into the occasional sniffle, Neville shifting her body to lie across his chest when his right arm fell asleep. And although it was only Neville's timid friendly kiss on her forehead, rather Harry's sweet lips on hers, she felt less lonely than she had in a long time.

- + - + - + - + - + -

Three days passed before they spoke of Harry again.

The intermittent days in the infirmary were frightening—too many voices, too many reassurances, too many hours lost to sleep. But with the slow improvement in her sight came an easing of the tension as it became apparent that indeed all of her vision would return, so that now as she sat cross-legged on the bed with Neville inventorying the numerous presents she had received, her smile was pure and untroubled even though all her eyes could distinguish was light and shadow.

"There are Bertie Bott's and a whole pack of Drooble's and chocolate fro—whoops!"

Ginny laughed in delight as she felt the little charmed piece of chocolate slip through her fingers and Neville's long body go flying across the bed after it. She was still laughing as he came back, and carefully placed the candy back in her hands, covering them with his own to keep it trapped.

And then she wasn't laughing at all.

It struck her how much sharper everything seemed without sight, little things she would never notice—the feel of large, calloused hands swallowing her own; the smell of earth and flowers—and she realized that she couldn't remember one single scent or feel or sound to associate with Harry, but now these would forever remind her of Neville.

And at that thought Ginny pulled her hands away, and Neville moved from the bed to the chair beside it.

It was the movement that told her, he had felt it, too, that one split-second when their hands had been doing more than trapping a runaway piece of chocolate.

Holding her a few days ago had seemed to melt the last of the awkwardness in him. He sat on the bed like all the others, touched her with the same affectionate casualness, even went so far as to draw her to lean back against him as Colin had the entire D.A. pose for a picture around her bed before Madame Pomfrey kicked them all out. But now he retreated back to the propriety of the visitor's chair that no one but him had ever used, and she didn't know how to call him back.

"Your brothers sent five daydream charms." He continued, as though what had just happened had not happened at all, only betraying that it in fact had by the tremor in his voice, "They figured that if you couldn't see what was happening around you . . ."

"I'd want to dream about brawny pirates, snogging me as salt water sprayed my face?"

"Umm," She could hear Neville fumbling for the boxes to check. "I- I think it's a knight in armor snogging you after he's killed the dragon."

Groaning at all the personal issues, of which her well-meaning brothers obviously had no inkling, but were brought up by that particular imagery all the same, Ginny grumbled, "Do me favor, give them away, or better yet sell them and buy me more chocolate. I'm sure Lavender or Pavrati or even Romilda would pay a bit to their hands on some. I can even bet who would star, at least in Romilda's fantasy."

"Are you sure?"

"The only daydreams I want are about all the Honeyduke's chocolate you can buy with the money."

"I can buy you chocolate."

"Dammit Neville! Just get rid of the blasted things!"

"Right. Sell the charms, buy you chocolate." He muttered as his silhouetted form bent to place the boxes back on the floor, and she suspected to keep her from seeing his expression, though she couldn't do that anyway.

"Buy _us_ chocolate." She amended, trying to convey an apology without actually apologizing. "Buy us lots of chocolate we can get fat on, so fat we'll never be able to get back on a broom again."

"I never was much good on broom."

Merlin, she wished he wouldn't do that! Insert little drabs of reality into her efforts at fantasy. Plowing on resolutely in an effort to keep him from dragging down her pleasant little moment of frivolity, she replied, "And I don't want to ride another broom for ages so we're free to eat all the chocolate we want."

"The quidditch team will never forgive me. They miss you."

"The quidditch team misses Harry!" She snapped unthinkingly, fed by all her frustration at being trapped in the infirmary, at missing Harry's visit, at Neville's sudden withdrawal and the confounding feeling of his hands on hers that wouldn't go away.

"_You_ miss Harry." Neville hissed back suddenly no longer timid or apologetic. "The rest of us just miss you. Ginny Weasley before Harry Potter."

She recoiled as though slapped. "What's that supposed to mean?"

"It means there's a lot of people around here who liked you before you became Harry's girlfriend, and don't really care that he's not here. Frankly, we'd all be fine with it if it was just Ginny Weasley leading the D.A. and captaining the quidditch team, not Ginny standing in for Harry."

He stood at that, dumping the rest of her presents on her lap.

"What do you know?" She whispered, clutching a little tighter at the now melting piece of chocolate he had placed in her hands.

Neville paused and looked down at her before saying very quietly. "I know the green dress you wore to the Yule Ball was just as old as Ron's dress robes, and I know it didn't matter. After Fleur and Hermione you were the one everyone watched, and the others were just a novelty anyway. Let me know when that Ginny comes back, I liked her better."

And when he left her she felt lonelier than she had in a long time.

- + - + - + - + - + -

It felt like days before he returned, but in reality it was less than twenty-four hours.

This time when she awoke to a hand being pressed over her mouth, the fingers were long and slim and familiar, and she had no inclination to cry out.

"I thought you were waiting for the old Ginny to come back?" she whispered against the flesh of his palm, aware from the stillness of her surroundings and his warning gesture that the time must be beyond normal visiting hours.

"That was mean of me."

"That was honest of you."

Neville's hand had moved from her mouth, but only to finger a strand of her hair, tracing its length along her cheek, a gesture far more intimate than he would have dared only a few days before, or even a few hours before. It was a conscious gesture, putting the earlier awkwardness of the day behind them, both acknowledging and purposefully ignoring what had caused them to lash out at each other. Something had changed, when he had held her, when she had begged him so pathetically to carry her through this time, to be stronger than she was and he ever believed himself to be, and with that change came the right for him to touch her like this, and for her to lean into it.

"I like Ginny after Harry just fine."

"You're a horrible liar."

"I'm not lying."

"Is that what you had Luna disillusion you for? To tell me that Ginny after Harry is okay?" she whispered, hoping just a little that it really had been that important to him.

"No . . ."

Her breath caught as he trailed off significantly, and she thought she knew what his next words would be.

"Harry . . ." The name transformed on her tongue, simultaneously a prayer and curse, as she wished to hear more from him and wept inwardly with the knowledge of what such contact meant.

"There's been a letter." Neville whispered the words against her ear, confirming all her worst fears, his hand cupping her cheek in apology, even as his other hand pressed the parchment into hers. "I didn't want you to hear it from anyone else."

"Thank you." She replied quietly, amazed that even as her insides curled up on themselves, her outside demeanor remained calm, almost untouched by the news. No tears came, no screams escaped her throat, even the sharp, bitter anger of earlier didn't manifest. It was for Neville's sake, she realized. It seemed unfair to him, to thrash about as though the world was ending when the fact that he was here proved that it very obviously wasn't.

Neville's earlier chastisement had not been entirely misplaced. She'd spent this semester suspended, waiting for something that would never come. There were things Harry had to do, she'd always known those things would come, even at eleven she'd known. It was time for her to face that those things had never included her in the way she wished, to shoulder her loss with as much dignity and quiet resignation as Neville, with the resolve and unquenched fury of Titus, and perhaps even the absurd hope that carried Luna.

It was time to stop waiting for Harry to realize a mistake he hadn't made.

"Read it to me, please." It was both an entreaty and a command, one she fully expected to be granted, but aware of the magnitude of what she asked.

He didn't answer, but when he moved away she somehow knew it was only to check that Madame Pomfrey was not likely to stir from her office any time soon. Sure enough, in a few moments, she felt the bed shift as he came back to her.

She didn't have to tell him what to do this time. With the confidence of one who had already been given permission, he slipped behind her, cradling her against his chest, so that as he whispered _Lumos_, the magic of the word trailed against her ear, illuminating them in soft wandlight.

Sliding the wand under the sheets to dampen the glow, Neville moved to unscroll the parchment, only pausing momentarily when her hands didn't release it, but rather moved with his.

"Dear Gin . . . You've probably guessed what I'm about to say, and you're probably already too mad at me to really read this because of it, but please calm down a little and find a way because it's damned important."

The words came haltingly at first as he stumbled over Harry's too-quick scrawl, and the occasional endearment, but gradually he grew used to the hand-writing, and the endearments no longer gave him pause, so that as he reached the final paragraph the words were steady and sure.

Harry's words on Neville's lips.

"So that's it. We're about to do something terribly noble and stupid, and I only wish I was a little braver because if I was you'd be here with me and not back in the Gryffindor common room cursing my name. So I'm sorry for being too much of a coward to brave out the possibility of losing you, and I'm sorry for not being cowardly enough to run away with you and leave this to everyone else. I'm sorry for a lot of things and maybe it's selfish of me to tell you now, but the thing I'm the most sorry for is that I never said I love you. Because I do. I love you Ginny Weasley, and hopefully when I come back you'll have decided you love me, too."

Lowering the parchment clasped in now entangled hands, they were quiet with the power of moment. She had shivered at the whispered 'I love you's, and if she noticed the pause between the first and second time it was said, the new layers of emotion in a voice that had lowered to caress the words against her skin, well . . . she had shivered the second time, too.

"There- There are tear stains." He whispered finally, guiding her fingers with his own. "Here . . . and here . . ."

Neither one of them said anything about the fact that she sniffled or the few drops of moisture that fell against her shoulder.

There was a lot that went unsaid about that night. Madame Pomfrey never said a word about the extra shoe at the end of the bed or the third hand curled around the parchment in her sleeping patient's lap. When Titus came later that night he merely gave the seemingly levitating Red the once over, grinned, and went back his far more comfortable four-poster. Even Luna said nothing when she came to relieve Neville so he could go to Herbology and the kiss he pressed to Ginny's forehead was a little too tender, but truthfully she might not have been paying attention as there was a very interesting dust fairy floating around the foot of the bed.

- + - + - + - + - + -

So that's it. I hope the story continues to work for all of you, but if it doesn't please feel free to tell me.

Panache


End file.
